Best Pancakes

An anomaly among all those trendy little crudi huts, panini parlors, and nibble
salons scattered along the Lower East Side's hippest restaurant row, the Clinton
St. Baking Co.-a.k.a. the Sarabeth's of the trucker-hat set-makes the best
pancakes in town. Like any self-respecting flapjack flipper, chef Neil Kleinberg
ladles them out big, each one roughly the size of a whoopee cushion. Folding egg
whites into the batter at the last minute, he says, accounts for their
remarkable fluffiness. They're light and springy, redolent of fresh butter, and
festooned with enough blueberries (in season, Kleinberg uses wild ones from
Maine) to satisfy a mama bear and her cubs. Demand is such that Kleinberg
doesn't dare take them off the menu, even at dinner. "We get a lot of people
down here who wake up at four o'clock," he says, "At six, they come in, and they
want pancakes."